It'sAlmostLikeWe'reAskingForIt
SpeculationA-Go-GoVille
From James Cohen and Peter Dent's recent Op-Ed in the Globe:
...Anyone who estimates the amount of foreign ownership of real estate in Canada will be wrong. Everyone will be wrong because in Canada, a foreign investor can pour money into Canadian real estate through a Canadian company they set up either federally, provincially or territorially, using a Canadian as a nominee director/shareholder/beneficiary, without disclosing the true beneficial owner.
How much real estate is owned through privately held corporations registered in Canada? How many of these privately held corporations are owned or controlled by foreigners? Our fractured system does not allow the tracking of foreign ownership of privately held companies so how can Statscan create a measurement of foreign ownership? It can't...
But this is just the way everybody does things, right?
Wrong.
...Canada is one of the few G20 countries where real estate agents and developers are not required to identify the beneficial owners of clients buying and selling property. In addition, the real estate sector has been criticized by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FinTRAC) for major deficiencies in money laundering controls...
Gosh.
Who benefits from such opacity?
.
Links 11/24/24
1 hour ago
2 comments:
who benefits? any one trying to hide money from their own government, the politicians in Canada, the real estate agents, the developers, etc.
Canada is one of the best places in the world to launder money because no one thinks it goes on.
G.B. had the same problem because gangster Russians were "hiding" their money there, in real estate, G.B. changed the laws and now every one has to be declared as the owner, who owns in G.B. According to some reports a lot of real estate went up for sale after that law. Will that law come to Canada? Not so much. We might have it brought to B.c. which would be lovely, but I'm not holding my breath.
Everyone who owns anything in Canada, ought to have it be part of the public record. As Canadians we all have the right to know who owns the land in this country and what amount they own.
When a piece of land changes hands for $10M over the assessed value, what is really going on? Are they trying to launder money? Are they paying some one off? We have the right to know.
As we enter more and more Free Trade Agreements the federal government needs to implement new rules regarding who owns what and ensuring all owners are declared or some day we might just wake up and find we don't own any of our own farm land.
What i really love is when public land changes hands for millions LESS than its value,to someones good buddy. Right,deedee watts? Rich 'the screw'coleman?
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